Residents urged to follow health advice on attending sports events

To tackle the growing rise of COVID-19 infections locally and nationally, the Government introduced more stringent legal requirements in the last seven days, including additional local restrictions in some areas.

New restrictions came into effect in the neighbouring areas of Merseyside, Warrington and Halton to try to halt the increasing number of coronavirus cases that have been recorded over recent weeks.

As a result of the current situation in neighbouring areas, Cheshire West and Chester Council is urging its residents to be aware of the additional restrictions and Government advice that applies to Halton, Warrington and Merseyside and to take this into account especially when planning social and leisure activities.

Government advice to residents of those areas includes:

• Avoiding socialising with people you do not live with, unless they’re in your support bubble, in any public venue, and

• Avoiding attendance at amateur and semi-professional sporting events as spectators.

Ahead of the weekend, Ian Ashworth, Cheshire West and Chester’s Director of Public Health wants everyone to please consider all the things they can do to reduce  the risk of spreading of the virus, saying:

“I would urge our residents to follow advice and not attend sporting events as spectators in our neighbouring areas, where we know there is much greater community transmission of the virus, and where there is a real danger that you will be mixing with others who are infectious and may not yet have symptoms.” .

“We have seen evidence from the North East where a football match attended by around 300 supporters, resulted in 61 new COVID-19 cases and all attendees needing to self-isolate for 14 days – we do not want this to happen in Cheshire West.

“I would ask everyone to re-consider attending a sporting event with possibly hundreds of spectators is really worth the potential risk to their own health, their family’s health and the health of the wider community.

“If you do make the choice to mix with others outside of your household at sporting events, or in public venues like pubs and restaurants, you must not do this in groups of more than six and you must make sure that you are able to maintain social distance from those outside of your household or social bubble.”